Can we see whether the invoice was sent?

The customer claims the invoice never arrived. How do you see whether it was sent, when and to whom? Business Central stores sent emails, but not necessarily where you look for them. This article shows where sent and failed emails are kept, how access to them is controlled, and which other traces exist in the system. You also get three other places to look.

Sent emails and the email outbox

Microsoft Learn says that Business Central stores the emails you send on the Sent Emails page, so you can resend or forward them. If you cannot find an email there, look in the Email Outbox.

The outbox contains drafts and emails that could not be sent, for example because of an invalid address. The error message field tells you what went wrong, and the actions Show Error and Show Error Call Stack give more detail.

Who can see what

Access is controlled per user with email viewing policies. There are four choices: only own emails, all emails, emails where the user has access to all related records, and emails where the user has access to at least one related record. If no other policy is set, the choice with access to all related records is used.

This means that a bookkeeper can normally see emails a colleague has sent, if the bookkeeper has access to both the invoice and the customer. Learn also mentions that administrators, depending on the extension, can see a list of sent messages, but not the content.

Set the policy deliberately. If you want to be able to answer the customer's question regardless of who sent the email, the bookkeepers need a policy with access to related records or all emails.

Sent, printed or attempted

Be careful with the field for the number of prints on a document. Learn says the number also goes up when you send the document as email, because a PDF is created. The number is updated even if the email is not sent. So it is not proof that the customer received anything.

If email is set up to send in the background through the job queue, the system retries at intervals of a few minutes, up to ten times. After that the reason is recorded, and you can use the action Retry Details. Note that retrying only works for emails scheduled for background sending. An email you send manually that fails is not retried.

Other traces when the email cannot be found

The sender's mailbox. If you send from Microsoft 365, a copy is typically in the sent items of the sender or the shared mailbox. Check in Exchange how your setup works.
Archived documents. If archiving is turned on, a new version is created when a document is printed, downloaded or sent as email. This applies to orders and quotes, not posted invoices.
The customer's reply. Business Central can only send. Replies do not come back into the system.

How to answer the customer

When the customer asks, the answer should be specific: date, time and address. Find the email on the Sent Emails page, and check the recipient. If the address is wrong, you can correct it and send again, because sent emails can be resent or forwarded.

If the email does not arrive even though the address is right, the problem may be with the customer's spam filter. Here it helps to ask the customer to check and add the sender as a known contact.

The idea

Sent Mail History is on our list of possible apps. It corresponds to an idea about making sent emails available on sales documents, which has about 120 votes on Microsoft's ideas portal. The thought is an overview of sent emails directly on the document and on customer and vendor cards. It is an idea we are considering, and not something you can download or buy.